Beer in Rome

If you like beer and you’re coming to Rome, you’re in for a treat. Despite not being beer monsters like their northern European cousins, people in Rome are increasingly learning to love beer. This is mainly due to an craft beer revolution currently underway in Italy, with hundreds and hundreds of small artisanal producers popping up all over the country – though if you’re more into Italy’s crisp, mass-produced lager, we’ve got you covered too.

Below, we tell you the best places in Rome to enjoy this explosion of tasty brews, but first we’ll talk about beer in Rome in general.

As a rule, in a country with some of the best wine in the world, it’s understandable that few Italians ever order beer to accompany a meal, or spend all evening drinking the stuff. For most people in Rome, beer is more an occasional treat, or a refreshing beverage to have a quick sup of on the way home from work.

How to order a beer in Rome

Despite this lack of societal ubiquity, lager in bottles (in bottiglia – “een bot-EELL-ya”, usually 330 ml) or on draft (alla spina – “ah-lah SPEE-nah”) is available in most bars and restaurants.

If you order a beer in a restaurant or bar, nine times out of ten you will be offered a mass-produced lager (‘chiara‘ – kyAR-ah) or bionda (often weissbeer), though occasionally rossa (red ale). Beer from the tap is served in glasses of the size media (400 ml, ~13.5 fl oz) or piccola (200 ml, ~6 fl oz). There is also an official grande glass of 1 litre, but it’s extremely rare. To get around a pint of draft lager in a restaurant, just ask for:

Una chiara media alla spina (oon-ah kyAR-ah MEDDy-ah ah-la SPEEN-ah).

Mass-produced lager in Rome

Italy only really exports mass-produced lager in the form of Peroni (in actual fact their ‘Nastro Azzuro’ – blue ribbon – recipe; regular Peroni, which comes in a brown bottle and tastes very similar, is not exported), which is a crisp but bland and slightly sweet industrial lager that sits alongside other brands such as Poretti and Moretti – though worth a mention in the industrial lager category are Menabrea from the north of Italy, and Ichnusa from Sardinia, which are both more ‘dry’ and a little more tasty.

Each of these breweries has some ‘special edition’ beers including rossa and extra hoppy stuff, but all are still mass-produced.

This author actually likes most of the above, but real beer snobs may not!

Most regular bars and restaurants will usually only have one brand available on tap, but will probably have other brands in bottles. All of the above can be bought from a supermarket.

How much is beer in Rome?

The cost of beer in Rome differs wildly from place to place, from only around 1 euro for a 660 ml bottle in a supermarket to €5 for a 330 ml bottle of the same beer in a restaurant.

Buying a pint (PEEN-tah – not always available) or a media in a place that serves craft beer on tap will probably put you on the high end of the price scale (€4 to €5), and if you eat at a high-end restaurant that serves really artisan bottled beers, you could be charged €10 or more – though that’s sometimes for a bottle of ale the size of a wine bottle (750 ml)!

Where to find real ales in Rome

Despite beer not being as ubiquitous in other countries, the revolution continues with a small but growing band of passionate producers and consumers. Beer festivals are common in Rome, particularly in the summer months, and are full of small producers of seriously tasty ales and stouts from all over the country. The brands and batches in the beer revolution are so small that it’s difficult for us to specify individual brews, though this author recently had an IPA from ‘Birra da Mare’ that was awesome.

So to sample the wares in Rome, we suggest that you visit some of the pubs and brewhouses that are springing up around the city and try the beers out – most of the bars will provide you with a small taster. This list is by no means comprehensive: new places open up nearly every month.

All of the places mentioned below have a healthy, swift rotation of cask-fresh guest Italian ales and imports on tap. Pubs to go to include:

Il Serpente Pub at Via dei Marsi, 21 also in San Lorenzo (a bit grimy but they know their beer) [map]

and honourable mentions should also go to:

L’Oasi della Birra at Piazza Testaccio 40, which doesn’t carry that much draft but has hundreds of varieties of imported bottles from all over the world in its cellars, including Italian brews. It also does possibly Rome’s best aperitivo buffet in the early evening [map]

Brewdog at Via delle Terme di Tito 80, literally opposite the Colosseum. Included because while it and features mainly beers from its Scottish brewery namesake, it’s a real ale place and does serve some Italian brews. Plus, what a location… [map]

There are several other brew pubs in Rome, but we hope this gives you a good starting point for your appreciation of the artisan revolution underway here.